Obama’s official White House photographer is bringing the ‘Shade’ to NC

This photo of President Barack Obama, taken by former White House photographer Pete Souza, is on the cover of “Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents,” his upcoming book that compiles photographic commentary about the current White House. Pete Souza

This photo of President Barack Obama, taken by former White House photographer Pete Souza, is on the cover of “Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents,” his upcoming book that compiles photographic commentary about the current White House. Pete Souza

This story originally was published July 13, 2018.

President Obama’s official White House photographer Pete Souza is coming to Chapel Hill to sign copies of “Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents,” his new book that uses photos to critique the current administration.

He will be at Flyleaf Books Oct. 26 at 6 p.m. The ticketed event — a book signing only — requires buying the book in advance. Books, which serve as tickets, are limited, but on Wednesday, the bookstore said books are available.

Souza was the official White House photographer for Presidents Reagan and Obama. He’s best-known for his tenure with the latter, which yielded up the 2017 best-seller “Obama: An Intimate Portrait.” It was drawn from the 1.9 million photos he took of Obama during his eight years in office.

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Since Trump was elected, Souza doesn’t hide his feelings about his actions, regularly posting photos of Obama on Instagram comparing and contrasting his behavior with that of Trump. The snarky, not-so-subtly critical captions — also known as throwing shade — often are juxtaposed with the current events of President Trump’s day.

An old photo of Obama with Prime Minister Theresa May has the caption: “Back when Prime Minister Theresa May respected a U.S. President. And vice-versa.”

Another photo of Obama reading the newspaper is captioned: “Back when we had a President who read a newspaper and didn’t call it fake news even when he was criticized.”

In a May 23 Instagram post announcing “Shade,” Souza wrote that the book is his expression of concern over “the future of our democracy.”

“We have a president who clearly does not understand democracy and the rule of law,” Souza wrote, lamenting Trump’s “reality game show” tendencies with “ratings and wins” as the goal.

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